WE WERE informed, upon returning from the holiday break, that we were losing our nurse, from full time to three days a week. We miss the district's threshold level for qualifying for a full-time nurse, which is 850. We have 838 students, many of whom are medically fragile students with myriad health issues that require medical attention on site. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has advised all of its constituents not to assist with the dispensing of medicine, which then falls to the administrators. Our principal, Cheryl Glaser, is saddened, frustrated and very concerned about dispensing controlled substances to children on a routine basis.
Recently, a student who moved into our boundaries was medically transferred - or, in my mind, poached - to another school because they have a full-time nurse. Are certain children being looked upon as more valuable, so they are being sent to other schools? If you have an exceptionally bright child, mentally gifted and well-behaved, you can't send him away to a "better school" outside your boundary, even if you think the child would thrive - yet, we are now putting a price on medically fragile children and sending them far from home so the district won't have to pay a nurse to be full time.
